S62 INTEGRITY AND PUEITY OF THE HEBREW AND GREEK TEXT.
same manner it is Ezra x. 44), in the third person plural, the pre- terperfect tense of kal is ''")^3, " perfoderunt," " they digged," or " pierced through my hands and my feet." But to what purjDose is this gleaning after the vintage of Mr Pococke to this purpose in his excellent Miscellanies?
The place of old instanced in by Justin Martyr, Ps. xcvi. 10, where he charges the Jews to have taken out these words, avb |uXou, "from the wood," making the sense, " The Lord reigneth from the wood," or the tree, so pointing out the death of Christ on the cross, is ex- ploded by all; for besides that he speaks of the Septuagint, not of the Hebrew text, it is evident that those words were foisted into some few copies of that translation, never being generally received, as is manifested by Fuller, Miscellan. lib. iii. cap. xiii. And it is a pretty story that Arias Montanus tells us of a learned man (I suppose he means Lindanus) pretending that those words were found in a He- brew copy of. the Psalms, of venerable antiquity, beyond all excep- tion, here in England; which copy coming afterward to his hand, he found to be a spurious, corrupt, novel transcript, wherein yet the pretended words are not to be found ! Arias Mont. Apparat. de Variis Lee. Heb. et Mass, And I no way doubt, but that we want oppor- tunity to search and sift some of the copies that men set up against the common reading in sundry places of the New Testament, we should find them not one whit better or of more worth than he found that copy of the Psalms.
CHAPTER IIL
Of various lections in the Greek copies of the New Testament.
For various lections in the Greek copies of the New Testament, we know with what diligence and industry they have been collected by some, and what improvement hath been made of those collections by others. Protestants, for the most part, have been the chiefest collectors of them. Stephanus, Camerarius, Beza, Cameron, Gro- tius, Drusius, Heinsius, De Dieu, Cappellus, all following Erasmus, have had the prime hand in that work. Papists have ploughed with their heifer to disparage the original, and to cry up the Vulgar Latin. A specimen of their endeavours Ave have in the late virulent exer- citations of Morinus. At first very few were observed. What aheap or bulk they are now swelled unto we see in this Appendix. The collection of them makes up a book bigger than the New Testament itself ! Of those that went before, most gave us only what they found in some particular copies that themselves were possessors of; some,
THE VARIOUS LECTIONS W THE NEW TESTAMENT. 363
those only which they judged of importance, or that might make some pretence to be considered whether they were proper or no. Here we have all that by any means could be brought to hand, and that Avhether they are tolerably attested for various lections or no; for as to any contribution unto the better understanding of the Scripture from them, it cannot be pretended. And whither this work may yet grow I know not.
That there are in some copies of the New Testament, and those some of them of some good antiquity, diverse readings, in things or words of less importance, is acknowledged. The proof of it lies within the reach of most, in the copies that we have ; and I shall not solicit the reputation of those who have afforded us others out of their own private furniture. That they have been all needlessly heaped up together, if not to an eminent scandal, is no less evident. Let us, then, take a little view of their rise and importance.
That the Grecian was once as it were the vulgar language of the whole world of Christians is known. The writing of the New Tes- tament in that language in part found it so, and in part made it so. What thousands, yea, what millions of copies of the New Testament were then in the world, all men promiscuously reading and studying of the Scripture, cannot be reckoned. That so many transcriptions, most of them by private persons, for private use, having a standard of correction in their public assemblies ready to relieve their mistakes, should be made without some variation, is sk t£v ddwdruv. From the copies of the first ages, others in the succeeding have been tran- scribed, according as men had opportunity. From those which are come down to the hands of learned men in this latter age, whereof very few or none at all are of any considerable antiquity, have men made it their business to collect the various readings we speak of; with what usefulness and serviceableness to the churches of God others that look on must be allowed their liberty to judge. We know the vanity, curiosity, pride, and naughtiness of the heart of man ; how ready we are to please ourselves with things that seem singular and remote from the observation of the many, and how ready to publish them as evidences of our learning and diligence, let the fruit and issue be what it will. Hence it is come to pass, — not to question the credit of any man speaking of his manuscripts, which is wholly swallowed in this Appendix, — that whatever varying word, syllable, or tittle, could be by any observed, wherein any book, though of yes- terday, varieth from the common received copy, though manifestly a mistake, superfluous or deficient, inconsistent with the sense of the place, yea, barbarous, is presently imposed on us as a various lection.